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Many people took to social media to share pictures of the sun in Bath on Monday morning, and drivers also reported a thin film of dust on their cars in the morning – a sure sign of strong southerly winds.

The red sun cast an eerie light over the city this morning (Image: Rachel Ward)

The dust in the atmosphere doesn't necessarily have to be red-coloured itself - the red colour of the sun is to do with light waves of colours other than red being blocked by the dust, and only letting the red colour waves through.

This is similar to how the sun often sets a red colour because the light is travelling through more of the Earth's atmosphere.

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With the blanket of cloud over Bath too, the effect means the clouds themselves are an eerie pale orange colour - this is for the same reason: the sun's 'red light' is being filtered through the clouds.

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What the experts say

Dr. Dave Reynolds from The Weather Channel has commented on the orange/yellow glow in the sky and is saying that four things have come together.

Winds were strong over Iberia on Sunday, which has resulted in dust from there being raised and then blown to the UK on a strong south to south-westerly flow. Some of the dust may be particulates from the fires, although I think regular fine-grained dust would account for the majority.

This is a result of Ophelia to the west of Portugal (on Sunday) and high pressure over the western Mediterranean, although it doesn't necessarily need a hurricane to do this (a regular, north Atlantic low would be just as good - so long as all the other conditions are met).

Furthermore, and importantly, the cold front of Ophelia moved across southern Britain this morning and was very weak - this meant there was not much rain to wash the dust out.

The winds are still southerly, despite the cold front coming through. Usually winds would veer and fresher (=clearer) Atlantic air would come in behind a cold front - but this won't happen until later today. As fresher air moves in later today, expect the colouration to gradually fade.

On top of this, much of the cloud at the moment is at mid-levels.

The lower levels and upper levels are fairly clear, which allows more sunlight to penetrate the cloud deck and, combined with the fairly high cloud base (3,600 ft at Birmingham Airport at the time of writing), allows conditions to be bright at surface.